Footnotes

'(The Bugatti Type 46) ...combines the luxury of a large limousine, the perfect flexibility and top gear performance of a thoroughbred low carriage with the perfect roadholding, the speed and acceleration of the best type of sports model.'  'The Motor', 1930. By the early 1930s Ettore Bugatti had established an unrivalled reputation for building cars with outstanding performance on road or track. Indeed, the world's greatest racing drivers enjoyed countless successes aboard the Molsheim factory's products and often chose them for their everyday transport. Although Bugatti is best remembered for its racing models, most of the 6,000-or-so cars produced at the Molsheim factory were touring cars of sporting character. Produced from 1929 to 1932, the Type 46 exemplified Bugatti's policy of building fast and exciting touring cars possessing excellent handling. The Type 46 was powered by a 5.4-litre, single-overhead-camshaft, straight-eight engine - effectively a short-stroke version of that found in the stately Type 41 Royale - while the axles, brakes and rear-mounted transmission were other Royale carry-overs, giving the model the name 'La Petite Royale'. Because of its lengthy run of success, Ettore Bugatti had remained committed to his single-cam engine as found in the Type 46, only adopting the more advanced double-overhead-camshaft method of valve actuation, after much prompting by his eldest son Jean, on the Type 50 of 1930. But of all the many and varied car designs that he produced, it is the elegant and handsomely proportioned Type 46 that the legendary artist/engineer is said to have favoured most. Unlike the Royale, only six of which found customers, the Type 46 proved far more saleable, a total of 444 (plus 18 supercharged Type 46S) leaving the Molsheim factory by the time production ceased. A civilised grande routière to match those of rivals Delage and Delahaye, the Type 46 attracted coachwork of the finest quality executed in a wide variety of styles, the faux cabriolet body carried by this example being the work of Veth & Zoon (Veth & Son). Established in 1840 in Arnhem, Holland, Veth & Son started off constructing horse-drawn carriages before diversifying into powered transport towards the end of the 19th Century. The company grew quickly and in 1914 was appointed the official coachbuilder to the Dutch Royal Family. Before WW2, bodies were fitted to chassis of quality marques such as Bugatti, Hotchkiss, Talbot Lago, Bentley and Packard. After the war, Veth & Son escaped the fate of many of their contemporaries by branching out into the manufacture of truck and van bodies. The company still exists building commercial and public service vehicles but has not bodied a car for over 60 years.The well documented car offered here - chassis number '46293', fitted with its original engine number '157' - was the 18th of 35 Type 46 chassis produced in the Molsheim factory in April 1930. A Type 46 chassis had been ordered on 4th April 1930 by a provincial Dutch Bugatti agent, H Stam of Soest, a town about 35 kilometres south-east of Amsterdam, for his client C D Klos, a mussel farmer from Ierseke on the Oosterschelde coast, around 120 kilometres south-west of Soest. Chassis number '46293' was allocated to this order, for which the agent was invoiced the sum of 64,980 French francs (approximately £537 at the then current rate of exchange). The chassis was duly delivered to him on 14th April 1930, promptly following its completion, and came fitted with the wire wheels characteristic of early Type 46s.In 1928 Klos had decided to purchase a 3.0-litre Bugatti Type 44 via the Stam agency, which had ordered a chassis for him from the factory on 10th September. Chassis number '44637' duly arrived on 21st September and was forwarded to the long-established Belgian coachbuilders, D'Ieteren Frères of Brussels, who had been commissioned by Klos to build faux cabriolet coachwork to his personal requirements. However soon after taking delivery of the completed car he found it to be too small, hence his order some 18 months later for a Type 46 chassis. Klos was evidently pleased with the styling, if not the size, of the D'Ieteren coachwork on his Bugatti Type 44, so he commissioned Veth & Son of Arnhem to produce faux cabriolet coachwork of the same style upon his new Type 46 chassis, which they duly did.'The Bugatti Book' by Eaglesfield and Hampton, published in 1954, contained the first register of Bugatti cars. Chassis number '46293' is listed as being still in the ownership of C D Klos, of Damstraat 23, Ierseke. However by 1962, the year Hugh Conway's more comprehensive 'Bugatti Register' was published, the car had passed to its second owner, F L Boele van Hensbroek, of Straatweg 170, Rotterdam. It was then registered with the Rotterdam number 'RD-58-82'; however, the Register entry was in error in stating that the car was first registered in 1928 and, more seriously, that its coachwork had been produced by D'Ieteren of Brussels as a replica of the earlier body they had built on his Type 44. In 1973-75 Hugh Conway compiled an update to his 1962 Register which was published in instalments in 'Bugantics', the quarterly journal of the Bugatti Owners' Club, with a single line entry per car. This update listed van Hensbroek as still owning '46293'. The only register published since in which the car appears was produced by the Dutch Bugatti Club. This register, which was published in 2005, also includes all Bugattis known to have at some time been in Belgium, a country which has never had its own national Bugatti dub. The entry for this car (copy on file) reveals that after van Hensbroek it was owned successively by four more Dutch owners respectively named Bouvy, L Stapel, Rust and de Bouter, and that it had later been registered with the number 'K-6588'. The entry concluded by noting that the car had been sold in 2004 to W (Bill) Larsen of Wisconsin, USA, who was in the process of having it restored by Alpine Eagle, of Clanfield, Oxfordshire when he died a few years later. '46293' has since been acquired by its present British owner, under whose stewardship this most painstaking restoration has been finished. Completed by Alpine Eagle in 2010 at a cost of £340,000, the concours-standard rebuild is photographically documented in an accompanying ring binder, also containing all relevant invoices, while in addition the car comes with a beautiful, leather-bound, 36-page presentation album of professional studio photographs. Retaining matching chassis/engine numbers, the Bugatti is currently registered in the UK and is offered with Swansea V5 document and MoT Test Certificate valid to 17.5.2011.This supremely elegant car is bodied in the popular two-door Faux Cabriolet style of many original Type 46s and is finished entirely in black with contrasting beige mohair hood and nickel plated side mouldings, emphasising the design's long horizontal lines. The interior is upholstered in brown leather with a crocodile skin pattern, typical of the Art Deco period, which perfectly complements the original inlaid wood door cappings. Chassis number '46293' has covered only some 300 miles (approximately 480 kilometres) since the completion of its restoration and is presented in excellent condition throughout. Right-hand drive, like most quality French cars of the period, it represents a rare opportunity to acquire a unique, coachbuilt Type 46 exemplifying the crème de la crème of Bugatti touring cars, being one of only some 60 surviving Type 46s and certainly the best example to come to the market in recent years.

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